


Around We Go Again

by vic_of_sverige



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, also i haven't written anything in ages, also idk if major character death counts, because like, i wrote this in like 20 minutes, idk - Freeform, it kinda sucks, my headcanons change every day for founders era fic, there really isn't a major character but there is death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 12:18:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8578303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vic_of_sverige/pseuds/vic_of_sverige
Summary: Salazar  Slytherin storms out in anger and rage, Helena Ravenclaw slips away with a secret.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written anything for a long time and threw this together in about 20 minutes. I love founders fic, and have so many headcanons that change everyday. This is basically today's.

When Slytherin left, everything had to move on as usual. The other founders recognized that they had to keep the school running as usual. The students deserved better than their sanctuary crumbling. Classes continued as usual, with the exception of potions which were canceled for two months before a suitable replacement was found. A replacement picked by the rest of the staff. The students never needed to know how much Slytherin’s departure had torn the founders apart. It would go down in history thanks to the journals of Helga Hufflepuff, but at the time the students were simply told he had chosen to leave to pursue his research.

But at night, when the students weren’t around, it was different. Godric Gryffindor lost sleep, spending half his time staring at the wall, and half the time in fits of anger. His office was destroyed many times. Months of research lost to his rage, an entire classes essays gone. A silencing charm kept the students and the other teachers, except Helga and Rowena who helped clean everything up and clean the cuts on his knuckles, blissfully unaware.

Helga cried every night for four months. It wasn’t that she had had feelings for Salazar, she hadn’t, but she mourned the loss of her friend. The Salazar that had stormed out that calm evening wasn’t her old friend. She was scared of that man, scared of what he would do to preserve the “purity of magic”. She was scared that one day he might return, not to repent, but to cleanse the school, to destroy the muggleborn children who for many knew no safety besides Hogwarts, the children Helga loved most of all because she knew from her own experience what kind of lives they had likely led before.

Rowena didn’t cry. She couldn’t. She was in shock, angry, betrayed. She taught her lessons, ate in the Great Hall to put on a show of strength for the students, but then locked herself away in her quarters, not talking to anyone, except to clean up Godric’s messes. She couldn’t sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes she saw _him._ She could still smell him, still feel the softness of his skin when they lay in bed together. The few hours of sleep she did get where on the couch, she couldn’t touch that bed, feel those sheets were he had once been. Not that Helga and Godric knew about all that. There were some secrets she was careful to keep.

Near the end of the longest school year of their lives, things got better. The hurt and fear was still there, but they were able to move on, start living there lives again, putting all their focus back on the school, and finally everything seemed just a little bit brighter, but the darkness was about to return.

The one student who wasn’t fooled by the headmaster’s shows of strength and solidarity was Helena Ravenclaw. She knew why Slytherin had left, she had heard every argument he and Gryffindor ever had. Since he had left her mother refused to look at her, refused to acknowledge her even in class. It wasn’t like Rowena had always been the world’s most attentive, caring mother, but she had always been at least present in Helena’ life. Helena wasn’t stupid, she saw it when she looked in the mirror. How her dark hair fell straight and sleek instead of her mother’s girl. Her eyes more almond shaped, darker. The Parseltounge thing really gave it away for her, not that she had ever really asked her mother, and had been certain to keep that ability secret. Maybe if Rowena had paid more attention she would have seen what was happening to her daughter, how she spent all her time with Baron Cartwright, their secret nighttime meetings.

 Maybe if Rowena had been paying attention she would have realized how scared Helena was, how her dresses became baggier. Maybe if Rowena had been paying attention Helena wouldn’t have grown to resent her, and when the letter from her father came, she might not have left.

But Helena Ravenclaw wasn’t just her father’s daughter, she was her “Aunt” Helga’s niece. She was halfway to meeting him when she realized she couldn’t do this, that she didn’t agree with his beliefs and that she couldn’t bare the idea of him walking into Hogwarts and unleashing his wrath against people like Helga. The very idea make her sick to her stomach, and as she wiped the vomit from her mouth at the side of the road, she couldn’t be sure it was her advancing pregnancy that made her so ill.

By this time, Rowena had noticed her daughter was gone, and had asked the Baron to find her. Maybe if she had been paying attention she’d have noticed sooner.

Helena Ravenclaw had her baby boy in the backroom of a tavern owned by Percius Gaunt. He and his wife had been unable to have children, and eagerly agreed to raise the boy as their own. They never knew Helena’s identity, and never found out that their son was a direct descendent of two of the most noble families in the wizarding world.

Helena Ravenclaw ran away to Albania, far away from her son, far away from her father, where the Baron found her. After hearing that she had given up their child, he murdered her in a fit of rage, then killed himself in anguish. When news got back to Rowena of her daughter’s death, she cried herself to sleep, but never woke up. If only she had paid more attention.

Salazar Slytherin never knew about his grandson. When he heard of the deaths of his lover and daughter he realized how his actions had destroyed everything he loved, but he couldn’t go back, he couldn’t bring himself to fall to his knees in front of Helga and Godric and ask for forgiveness. He let his anger fuel him. He tried to ignore how numb it left him.  

It wasn’t until Alyosus Gaunt went to Hogwarts and sat under the Sorting Hat that he found out he was adopted. He was a hat stall between Slytherin and Ravenclaw. The hat said he was of both, exactly like his mother. Knowing Agnes Gaunt had never gone to Hogwarts, Alyosus asked what the hat meant. The hat didn’t respond, just asked him to pick. He picked Ravenclaw. It wasn’t until he was an upper year and magically traced his heritage that he found out. He couldn’t look the last surviving founder, Godric Gryffindor, in the eye after that. Gryffindor noticed, and on his death bed he learned the truth, hesitantly whispered from the mouth of a nervous Alyosus. To his surprise Gryffindor grinned.

“Come on boy, a grandson of Salazar Slytherin and Rowena Ravenclaw would never be lost for words. I don’t think either of them knew the meaning of ‘shut up’.”

 


End file.
